Calamacy Salaria

I’m standing in snow. In front of me stands a massive building made of stone. A huge archway covers the front. It is filled in by a massive wooden door. The building itself reminds me of a cathedral. With tall arched buttresses and tall panes of glass. The snow continues to swirl all around me. Standing in front of the doorway, I see a man covered in white clothing. There’s an oddly warm feeling that develops when see this man. I take a step forward. My body feels different. Looking down I see large muscled hands. Scars run up the arms. I’m wearing a vest of some kind. Yet I’m warm. I take a few mores steps forward. My legs feel entirely too large. I approach the man in white, the warm feeling growing as I get closer. Stepping out of the doorway from behind the man in the white, is a woman with long white hair, bundled up against the cold. Bright violet eyes stare up at me, a warm endearing smile spreads across her face. I feel a surge of emotions run through me. The most prevalent a deep searing longing for the woman. But there is also a sense of peace, of a burden fading away. I stop only a few feet away, each breath visible in the cold air. She steps forward and embraces me. The man in white smiles and I hear his voice.

“Welcome home Riros.”

I wake up. I open my eyes expecting to see the wooden roof of my dormitory. Instead my eyes rest on a stone ceiling. Thinking I’m dreaming I close my eyes again and try to pinch myself. I wait a few moments and then open my eyes again.

Same stone ceiling.

With a small sigh I cover my face and try to recall how I got here. The last thing I remember is seeing Altia’s face over mine, saying we were safe. From what? I ask myself. I try to go back farther than that, by the only thing that I remember is talking to Altia before everything went black.

What happened? I ask myself. As I try to recall more details, I remember seeing Altia’s bloody face. Something bad happened, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what. I try to recall exactly what she was saying. But for the life of me I couldn’t remember what she said at the end of her sentence.

I’m brought out of reverie by a voice echoing softly in my head.

“It’s not nice to intrude on one’s dreams you know.”

I sit up startled. I immediately recognized that voice. The deep resonating echo of it unmistakable. I do a quick survey off my surrounding looking for the source of the voice.

I’m in a large chamber, resting on a very large bed. The chamber is completely made out of stone, but its walls are finely decorated with large vibrant tapestries. There’s a set of windows off to my left which are letting in the light of the morning sun. Sitting in a chair to the right of the bed is a large man. He is wearing a worn black vest and a pair of pants made out of a rough faded blue material. It’s not until I see the scarred arms and chest does it click who this individual is. His name escapes my lips, “Riros”

He smiles and I hear his voice in my head again, “Hello Salaria.”

I just sit there stunned. After all these years of the summoning not working, here he was sitting across from me. My Summon. I can fill the bond that connects us, and it is connected to the individual before me. My mind is finding it hard to comprehend how the roiling black mass from so long ago could possibly be the man standing before me.

It is unheard of. I think, my mind starting to take off in some many different ways, there has never been a case where a summoner has actually summoned another human. But wait, is he even human? What was that black mass from before? Why is he only speaking in my head? What was that dream about? Did I actually intrude onto his dream?

Once again, my thoughts are interrupted by the sound of his voice in my head, “I can tell that you’ve got a lot of questions to ask. And given time I will try to answer your questions. I have my own questions for you. For now though I need to teach you how to communicate with me.”

He spends the next half-hour teaching me how to project my thoughts toward him. Finally he is satisfied with my progress and he lets me start to ask questions.

By this time I had wanted to get out of bed, but he shook his head saying that I was confined there until the healer proclaimed me fit to move around. So instead I grabbed the covers and put them over my head and sat facing toward him.

I project my first question toward him, “So, who was the white haired woman in the dream?”

He laughs at that, it is a deep booming laugh that echoes quite easily in the big room. He smiles at me before replying, “That’s seriously your first question?” His laughter dies down until he is chuckling softly. “Very well then, she is my wife.”

“Your wife!?” I exclaim out loud. Seeing that he doesn’t quite comprehend what I said, I quickly project into his head, “Your wife!?”

He just smiles at me. “Yup. She is beautiful isn’t she?”

I couldn’t help but nod my head. Even the brief glimpse that I had gotten gave me the same impression. I ask him another question, “If she’s your wife then who was the man in white standing next to her?”

He smile remains, as he replies, “That is my brother Miros.”

I think a moment before asking my next question a sense of dread starting to build up, “Did I call you away from them?”

His smile fades slightly, “Yes.”

That sense of dread builds up even more. Oh no, I think. I cover my face with the blanket and say “I’m sorry”

I hear him shift forward in his seat, and one of his hand touches my shoulder. “It’s alright Salaria, they are used to me disappearing from time to time. Besides they all knew after the first incident that I would be leaving for a little while.”

I can feel the sincerity in his thoughts. That only makes me feel slightly better though. Before I can ask him another question, the door to the room opens and in comes Altia, followed by her mother. She rushes in and immediately proceeds to hug me, even with the covers still on.

“You’re awake!!! We have been waiting for so long, I thought you would never wake up!” She says hugging me tightly.

“How long have I been out?” I ask.

Altia’s mother responds, “You have been out for several days, Calamacy-vim.”

“Four days to be exact.” Altia interrupts.

“Indeed,” Her mother continues, “It seems that the cost of actually summoning Riros was something that your body could barely handle or so the Phoenix Prior has informed us. You had a rather severe case of mana fatigue, the Prior had several healers pouring mana into you for the first two days.”

“We were really worried,” Altia says, squeezing me in another hug, “it didn’t help that that big oaf you summoned was basically hovering over you the whole time.” With that she gives a dirty look toward Riros.

His voice resonates in all our heads, “Please don’t talk about me when you know I can’t understand you.”

Altia sticks her tongue out at him. I chuckle slightly at her.

We are interrupted again, when one of the healers steps into the room. Altia jumps off the bed and gives him room to do his work. He gives me a quick check by placing his hand on my shoulder and checking my mana flow.

Once he finishes he asks, “How are you feeling Calamacy-vim?”

“I’m feeling very well, Tlassel-fa” I say.

“Good,” He says, “Can I ask Calamacy-vim to attempt to cast a simple light spell?”

I nod my head and focus in on my mana pool. To my surprise the moment I touch the mana pool I feel a massive well of untapped power lying there. Instead of the small puddle of mana that it had been, there is an almost bottomless feeling to the amount of mana that is my mana pool. I recoil from it at first, too surprised by this change to register exactly what it was.

Focusing back on the task before me I create the lights spell like I had done so many times in the academy. Except this time instead of having a small flicker of light appear, there is instead a blinding white sphere that appears in my hand. Startled once again by the difference I lose my concentration for a second and the spell dissipates.

I blink a few times as I’m momentarily blinded. After a few moments the blindness fades and I see Altia’s mother and the healer both attempting to recover from the spell. However it seems that Altia and Riros are unaffected.

I hear Riros’s voice in my head again, “Next time, how about you turn down the mana output of the spell, hm?”

I give him a sheepish grin before I say, “Sorry, my mana pool seems to have grown a lot larger, and I did what I normally do when I only had a trickle of mana to pull from.”

“Hmmm, I don’t think it’s that your mana pool has grown larger, you just have access to more of your mana.” He says, looking thoughtfully at me.

“What do you mean?” I ask him. But we are interrupted before he responds.

“Well it looks like there is nothing wrong with the mana flow.” The healer says rubbing at one of his eyes. “I’d say as long as you’re not feeling tired and or having any mental fatigue, you’re okay to be moving around. But take it easy for the next couple of days please.” He shakes his head a little bit, gives me a small smile and then leaves the room.

Grateful, I nodded my head toward the healer as he left. Once he had though, Altia’s mother chose that opportunity to say, “You must be starving Calamacy-vim.”

After she said that, I heard my stomach growl. Apparently I wasn’t the only one that heard it either as both Altia and her mother chuckled at me. Altia’s mother looked at Riros a second before turning back to me.

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She said, “Alright, Altia why don’t you help Calamacy-vim, get changed. Riros and I will be waiting outside.” With that they stood up and left the room.

Fifteen minutes later, with a little help from Altia I am dressed in a set of dark red trousers and a lighter red tunic. On top of that I wear a deep red robe. All of this is new, and seems to be crafted of some of the highest quality of material. Damn Gramps, I think, probably trying to make up to me now that my summon is actually here.

Altia and I step out into the hallway. I see Altia’s mother engaged in what I can only assume is a mental conversation with Riros. Her arms are crossed and I catch her frowning before she notices our presence and shifts back to her normal expression.

“Come now Calamacy-vim. Now that you are dressed we can go to lunch.” She turns and starts walking down the hall, leaving the three of us to trail along beside her.

“What was she talking to you about?” I ask Riros, as I caught up to him

He shrugged his shoulders before replying, “She wanted to know what my plans were now that I was here.”

“And?” I ask him, curious now as to his answer.

“At the moment my plan is to make you stronger.” He said, I got the feeling through the link that there was a second part to that statement, but I decided not to push it.

We walked for several minutes before we arrived at our destination, Altia the whole time had been chatting away constantly, trying to fill me in on everything that had happened since I had been out. Most of which was about her gaining her families abilities and the mental training her mother had been making her practice in order to better control her emotions.

I was only paying half attention though. Most of my attention was focused on the back of Riros. Now that he was standing and I was getting a decent look at him, I realized just how large he was. He seemed to tower over Altia’s mother. Not only that, he was also built like a bear. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and his slightly tanned skinned was marred by scars running along every visible patch of said skin. It also felt like every move of his was restrained. That there was something that was preventing him from moving in a normal manner, it was very slight, as if he had already come to terms with it. Even so, every step he took echoed heavily in the hallway. I could feel the floor and even the walls vibrating slightly.

Just who is he? I ask myself, what lies beneath his surface that makes him able to put out such a fierce aura. Is it even an aura? I’ve never heard of an aura that could produce that effect.

I’m pulled out from the thoughts swirling in my head by the sight of a table full of food. Another gurgle emanates from my stomach. Noticing that everyone else is moving to sit at the table I quickly follow suit. After waiting to say the proper thanks, I quickly fill up my plate and then dig in. Only after the third plate do I feel satiated enough to slow down and become aware of my surroundings.

I notice then that an odd silence has descended on the table. Normally there would be several conversations going at this point, but the only sounds could be heard was the clinking of silverware on plates and chewing. I looked around trying to get a better feel of what’s going on, and noticed that the Phoenix Prior, or “Gramps” as I call him, was sitting at the head of the table staring at me.

Putting down my fork and knife I leaned back into the chair and raised an eyebrow, not quite ready to be the one to break the silence.

He stared at me for a moment longer before speaking, “Salaria, it’s good to see you up and about.”

Once he spoke, it was as if everyone else had awoke. Both Altia and her mother were blinking their eyes rapidly and looked at the Prior seemingly startled. Riros though seemed unperturbed as he continued to eat his meal.

I nodded at him, unsure of how to respond.

“I’m sure you realize that due to your unfortunate state over the past couple of days, you are now several days behind on your studies at the Academy.” The Prior said.

Well crap, I think to myself as a sudden surge of forgotten tasks and other items comes flashing across my mind. The most prevalent of which being the deep blistering lecture I was going to get from my teacher of Nature Manipulation.

Seeing the downcast expression on my face, the Prior said, “I’ve already spoken to the headmaster at the Academy and he assures me that due to the extenuating circumstances that you will be given a chance to catch up on the lectures that you have missed.”

As he finishes talking a potential problem occurs to me.

“What about Riros?” I ask.

Gramps waves his hand dismissively, “He’s your summon isn’t he? As far as I’m aware the academy has no issue with summons following their Summoners.”

I turn to Riros as he is mopping up the last of the food on his plate. I project towards him, “Looks like you’ll be joining me at the Academy.”

He locks his gaze with mine, a small grin forming at the corner of his mouth. “Sounds like fun.” I hear in my head as he gives me a wink.

The next day I find myself at the front of the gates to the Academy. Once again I have beaten the Gatekeeper to the gate itself. This time however I am standing on the other side of the gate. As I wait for Graldur Baal to show up, I take a look at the city behind me. The light is trickling in on the rooftops of some of the buildings, and the streets are starting to fill up with all manner of individuals. More than a few of which are giving stares at Riros, who is currently standing off to my side munching on a skewer of fruit that I had bought for him.

I can see why they would stare at him though, besides his unusual height and build, he is wearing a black vest and pants on which the blue spiral rune that represents a summoned creature is imprinted. Not only is this strange for them, but it is also strange for me.

Last night before we retired for the night, Gramps approached me holding the clothing. He explained to me that even though Riros was another human like us, since he was brought here as a summon he would have to wear the summon glyph like every other summon. It took a fair amount of convincing in order to get Riros to wear it. Convincing that was not helped by that fact that he kept asking questions about the clothes, the colors, and the glyph itself. Only after we had answered all his questions did he finally acquiesce.

And so now he stood next to me, the only person to ever wear the symbol of a summon. Even so, he looks unperturbed. He notices me looking at him, as he finishes off the fruit. He points the skewer back to the gate and motions toward it. I turn my gaze back toward the gate, and so the slow shuffling figure of Graldur Baal.

“Graldur Baal!” I call out to him.

“Salaria-vim, what are you doing on that side of the gate?” He calls out, once his eyes have found mine.

He mumbles something to himself, not actually waiting for a response. I watch as he flings his arms out and his mana pours once more into the metal gates of the Academy. As the gates open I hear Riros’s rumble of a voice echo in my head.

“That’s an interesting enchantment.” He says.

I look at him slightly surprised, “You can see the enchantment on the gate?”

“I can see a lot of things Salaria. Enchantments happen to be one of the things that I’m particularly good at seeing.”

I shake my head, more questions forming in my mind. It seems that Riros and I are definitely going to need to have a discussion on what he can and can’t do. I think to myself.

Once the gates have fully opened I step forward to greet Graldur Baal.

“How are you this morning?” I say as I approach him.

He starts shuffling toward his gatehouse and looks over at me for a moment.

“What can I do for you Salaria-vim?” He asks.

I fall in step beside him and say, “I was told that I need to register my summon with you before he is allowed onto the Academy grounds.

At the mention of summon, he stops and turns fully toward me his face frozen in a look of shock as he says, “You have a summon?”

Seeing the expression on his face I can’t help but grin a little bit. I give him a nod.

He blinks for a couple of seconds seemingly trying to register what I had just confirmed.

“So where is your summon?” He asks.

I motion for Riros to step forward.

Graldur Baal blinks a few times again, the look of surprise painted on his face again.

“You’re not pranking me are you?” He says looking at me and then back at Riros again, his neck having to crane upward to meet Riros’s gaze.

I shake my head again, “Not a prank Baal-fa. He really is my summon. Hence why he is wearing the summons glyph.”

It is his turn to shake his head as turns to go into the gatehouse. I hear him mumble, “No wonder she is a Calamacy.”

He spends several moments rooting around in the gatehouse before coming out with a scroll. He steps forward toward Riros and holds out his hand another glyph forming out of mana in front of his outstretched fingers.

As the glyph is forming I hear Riros’s voice in my head again, “I don’t think that’s going to work.”

I look at him, “What do you mean that’s not going to work.”

“If I’m correct that glyph has something to do with placing some sort of tracking mark on a creature. And something of that caliber is probably not going to work on me.” His says. His eyes tracking the formation of the glyph.

Taking what he said into mind, I speak up to Graldur Baal, “I don’t think that’s going to work on Riros.”

Graldur Baal looks up at me for a moment. A look of confusion across his face.

“Nonsense, I’ve performed this enchantment hundreds of times and it has yet to fail to take. It was created after all by the previous headmaster, the same headmaster who now serves under the Brass Royalty herself.”

By that time the glyph had finished being formed and Graldur Baal motioned his hand forward pushing the glyph at Riros. The glyph floated across the space seemingly without an issue, until it touched Riros’s body. The moment contact was made, the glyph unraveled and all the mana was sucked into Riros. All in the blink of an eye.

“Well,” said Graldur Baal, “I guess you’re right.” He stood there staring at where the glyph had just been.

Turning to Riros, I projected toward him, “How did you know that the glyph wouldn’t work?”

He looked at me and replied, “No spell, enchantment or other mana based effect survives direct contact.”

I pause for a few seconds letting that sink in. No mana based effect survives direct contact with him. Another question pops up into my mind.

“Does that mean that you are immune to magic?” I ask him.

“Not immune, only magic based attacks that are indirect can be used against me.” He replies. Noticing my own distraction he motions with his head toward the gatekeeper.

I turn back to the gatekeeper, my mind a maelstrom of thoughts and questions as I try to grasp the bomb that he has just dropped on me.

During the extent of our mental conversation the gatekeeper had been staring between his hand and where the glyph had disappeared around Riros. He muttered something under his breath before turning back toward the gatehouse. Once again we can hear him rummaging around until he finally comes out. His robes are noticeably dustier and in each hand he holds a metal plaque.

He hands me one of the plaques and Riros the other. As he does so he says, “I never thought I would see the day when I would have to use these again.”

Holding the plaque in my hand I take a moment to study it. The surface is a gray metallic color. On it lies the summons glyph and the symbol of the academy.

“Now these plaques are left over from the old system that we would use to track summons before the previous headmaster, these plaques aren’t nearly as convenient as the new system, since you can’t keep track of where the summon is and none of the restrictions toward fighting and whatnot are in place, but,” he paused here to catch his breath before launching once more into the explanation, “these plaques will act as a form of identification and assuming that your summon, er Riros, doesn’t break the enchantment laid on the plaques itself, will keep a record of his movements when he is inside the Academy grounds. You can also use the plaque as a means of communicating with each other, albeit in a very limited manner, best used for simply trying to get one’s attention. In any case,” he stops to take another breath, this time straightening up a little more as his demeanor changes to that of a more somber feel, “Make sure not to lose the plaque either of you, since the plaque itself is not tied to any particular person, if you were to lose it would be quite difficult to retrieve and also expensive to replace.”

When he finishes his explanation, he seems to sag back down to his original form, leaning heavily on the staff that he has to his side. A small smile appears on his face as he says, “Congratulations Salaria.”

I smile back at him and give him a small wave as both Riros and I head into the Academy itself.